Author
Topic: Help a total noob...slow wi-fi (Read 280 times)

I just recently ditched my Netgear Nighthawk R8000 and built my first pfSense machine (on version 2.4.1) for my home network. I rackmounted AS Rock J1900D2Y with 16GB of ram and it's totally overkill, but something I've been wanting to play around with for a while. I've been learning a lot about pfSense and so far, it's been great.

So anyway, I have two Ubiquiti Unifi AC Pro indoor access points and one UAP AC M Pro outdoor access point running through a Netgear GS728TP switch. Everything was running great with my old Netgear router. I got my pfSense online right at about the same time this wpa2 vulnerability was discovered and Ubiquiti updated their firmware.

So now after everything's been changed, I have SLOW wifi, and I'm really not even sure where to start troubleshooting. I'm running the same settings on the switch and access points, so I think it may be in pfSense somewhere.

How is a pfsense problem? Is your wired connection slow as well? You tested traffic through wifi to just a wire device and that shows fine?

What exactly is slow? How are you testing exactly?

Pfsense has not clue to the traffic being from a wired client or a wireless client..

What firmware you running on AP? Current beta is 3.9.7.7651, just tested wifi speed through my phone and its screaming at 330Mbps down.. Exactly what it should be for the PHY the phone is connected at, etc.

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- An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.- Please don't PM me for personal help- if you want to say thanks applaud or https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/1x SG-2440 2.4.2-RELEASE-p1 (work)1x SG-3100 Shipped 3/15 (work)1x SG-4860 2.4.2-RELEASE-p1 (home)

I don't know that it is. Don't know if there's a setting I'm overlooking that will optomize traffic from the access points. I have a static address for my switch of 192.168.1.102 and the access points 192.168.1.107, 108, and 109. My problem is that I changed too many things at one time.

You tested traffic through wifi to just a wire device and that shows fine? What exactly is slow? How are you testing exactly?

Wired device to wired device traffic (desktop to NAS) is showing gigabit speeds. Internet speed test on desktop is normal (I get around 150 to 170 Mbps down and 20-25 Mbps up).

Wireless showing from phone, ipad laptop to NAS anywhere from 20Mbps to 140Mbps on 2.4 band and 35Mbps to 260Mbps, but it's variable and drops out and if I transfer a file or watch a movie on the NAS, it'll slow way down. Internet speed test shows 5Mbps to 40Mbps down and around 10Mbps to 20Mbps up depending on how far I stand from each access point)

Pfsense has not clue to the traffic being from a wired client or a wireless client..

What firmware you running on AP? Current beta is 3.9.7.7651, just tested wifi speed through my phone and its screaming at 330Mbps down.. Exactly what it should be for the PHY the phone is connected at, etc.

Good info to know. I've just been using the Ubiquiti ipad app to manage my access points. I've been thinking about getting a cloudkey controller thinking it might be able to give me a better idea of what's going on. Don't have the Beta, just the 3.9.3.7537 which it says the firmware is up to date.

"but it's variable and drops out and if I transfer a file or watch a movie on the NAS, it'll slow way down."

And this traffic goes over pfsense? Or is that just from wifi to wired on the same network.. You mention only 192.168.1... So I assume your wifi and wired on the same layer 2... If that it the case pfsense has zero to do with that traffic at all, would never go through pfsense.

Try rolling you firmware back.. Its not uncommon for unifi firmware to have issues that effect performance. What sort of features are you using on the wifi - any advanced features. Airtime fairness for example can be a huge hit on wifi speed.

You don't really need their little key you can run the controller on anything really.. A Pi, any sort of desktop you have running OS X, Windows or Linux - I run it on a VM on my esxi host for example.

If your wired speed through pfsense is showing fine - then its something with your wifi or the switching the wifi is connected too, etc.

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- An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.- Please don't PM me for personal help- if you want to say thanks applaud or https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/1x SG-2440 2.4.2-RELEASE-p1 (work)1x SG-3100 Shipped 3/15 (work)1x SG-4860 2.4.2-RELEASE-p1 (home)